Christians complain about BBC bias

The ridiculous homophobes at the Christian Institute have been complaining that a Christian character in the BBC’s Eastenders soap opera was recently portrayed as a ridiculous homophobe.

You’d have thought they’d be pleased.

Dot Cotton reacted to last week’s gay kiss in much the same way as one or two trolls on the BBC messageboards did.

please remember, the Lord ain’t the only one with eyes.

The elderly zombie-worshipper’s complaint was met with disrespectful sniggering by the two sodomites.

The Christian Institute’s persecution complex received another boost at the end of last week when Mastermind’s John Humphreys was rather splendidly disdainful about the gospels, which a contestant had chosen as a specialist subject.

Now, the Gospels, a tricky subject in a way because if you want to find out about the life of Jesus and you read all four gospels you’ll get different versions won’t you. Which are we meant to believe?

“All of them” was the predictable reply from the woman who was under the impression that the gospel of Matthew was an “eye-witness” account (as is the CI’s Mike Judge).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quaKCwYhvGo&eurl=http://www.christian.org.uk/news/20081014/gospels-slated-on-bbcs-mastermind/[/youtube]

In the meantime, the claim that “they wouldn’t treat Muslims that way” was given some credence last night by the BBC’s director general Mark Thompson, who said:

My view is that there is a difference between the position of Christianity, which I believe should be central to the BBC’s religion coverage and widely respected and followed.

What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.

There’s no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don’t want to say that all religions are the same. To be a minority I think puts a slightly different outlook on it.

However you interpret Thompson’s words, the Christian Institute’s logic does not stand up to scrutiny. Just because there are certain constraints on making fun of minority religions, it does not follow that those same constraints should apply to Christianity.

Christianity is much funnier than Islam in many ways. The central claims of both are equally untrue, but Christianity has the comic edge because, in addition to being false, it is also absurd.

Christianity has the comic edge because, in addition to being false, it is also absurd.

I think all the Abrahamic religions are equally absurd. What I find particularly absurd is when religious leaders want to force non-believers to go along with their beliefs. I mean, if God wants me to do or not do something, you’d think He’d tell me so, wouldn’t you… so the fact that I’ve not heard from him suggests that he does really mind (or doesn’t exist).

I LOVE how that video was posted by christian.org.uk. What a bunch of fools they must be to put something like that on YouTube for everyone to see, it’s really doing them no favours at all. The video helps to disprove their ideas! Surely they’d want to silence it rather than make it not only available, but embeddable? Numpties.

It’s a bit like if the Gary Glitter Fanclub put up a clip of a 24 hour news channel reporting on some exclusive video footage which catches the man Glitter abusing a child – after which the Fanclub add a post-script to the news clip saying “Look at this media bias!” No, don’t show everyone the clip you bloody idiots, keep it quiet!

Clicking on one of the links attached to that rant, it seems the CI posted a moan about soap opera bias last month as well. I had to laugh when the author described Coronation Street’s Todd coming out as a ‘recent storyline’. It was in 2004.

My view is that there is a difference between the position of Christianity, which I believe should be central to the BBC’s religion coverage and widely respected and followed.

Difference between your view of Christianity and what, Mr Thompson? You didn’t finish the sentence.

What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to [sic] people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.

What a Christian identity feels like to the broad population about is different from people? that’s what he said (but not, I assume, what he meant). Anyway, it’s a crappily constructed sentence. He probably said it while he was fucking a goat. It has that effect on you – so I’m told.

Which “Christianity” doest the Christian Institute claim to represent? Is it Catholicism? If so, which of the more than two-dozen Catholic denominations? Is it Anglicanism? If so, which of the more than three dozen Anglican denominations? It it one of the many Orthodoxies? How about one of the overtly Protestant denominations: Anabaptists, Baptists, Adventists, Penticostalists, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists? What about the Millerites, the Latter Day Saints, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses? What about the Christian Universalists? How about Messianic Judaism?

There seems to be some disagreement between and often inside these groups as to whether or not the Bible condemns people for their sexual orientation. Clearly, the EastEnders character is on one side of that argument. In condemning its fictional portrayal, isn’t the Christian Institute therefore condemning many of its very real members?

‘Christian Identity’ – unfortunate phrase if you look at the history of the Christian Identity movement in the US.
Then again, the words ‘BBC’ and ‘research’ go together about as well as ‘Christian’ and ‘morality’ these days.